Best Wicked Cool Video Rental: Killer Video

You don’t need a time machine to transport yourself back to the golden age of physical media — just step into Killer Video.

Original light boxes and eye-grabbing promotional standees dot the nonprofit museum’s interior, advertising favorite horror movies and cult classics like The Blob, Nightbreed and Child’s Play. Shelves full of VHS tapes like 1986’s Vamp and 1974’s Phantom of the Paradise fill the space inside of Akron’s historic Selle Generator Works building. A wall of old-school TVs plays a constantly rotating selection of frightening films, such as 1986’s campy Maximum Overdrive, about trucks and machines coming to life to terrorize humans. It’s one of founder and executive director Jonathon Carmichael’s favorites.

“The video rental era was a cultural phenomenon that really united so many people,” Carmichael says. “We have this shared nostalgia, and it was really a big part of the social fabric. … It had such an effect on people that there’s really nothing that preserves not only the ephemera of everything, but the experience, and that’s where I stepped in.”

Carmichael grew up in Akron — as did his partner, Erika Fritz, board president of Legacy Media Preservation. His first experiences with media came in the form of video stores local to the Rubber City, such as the now-defunct Roadrunner Video.

Fascinated with special effects work, he went straight to California after college, working in the art and grip departments for several productions. He then landed studio gigs for the likes of Air Hollywood — as studio manager there, he worked on productions such as Dexter and The Office — and Manhattan Beach Studios, where he was a sales manager and worked on productions such as The Mandalorian and Spider-Man: Far From Home. By the time he moved back to Ohio, around 2022, he was already formulating the idea for Killer Video.

“We’re not only preserving the actual tapes themselves … we’re preserving something that doesn’t exist anymore,” Carmichael says. “We are providing the experience of something that has not existed for a while, and I think that the abundance and the oversaturation of streaming has really directed people back to wanting to own their media.”

Upon entering, guests can explore a re-creation of a mom-and-pop video store. “We wanted to create the tactile experience of being able to pick up and touch and actually walk through,” Carmichael says.

Visitors then walk into a gallery section, where curiosities such as horror movie sales kits, lobby cards, merchandise and more are displayed, along with the work of featured artists. Killer Video puts together spotlight exhibits, including an upcoming one on video games. Plus, a video rental library — which costs $15 a month for membership — and consignment area allows museumgoers to take home merchandise, movies and art.

The museum had its soft opening around Black Friday 2024, and since then it has continued to build both an impressive collection and a reputation for community building — the nonprofit regularly hosts events, including quarterly Dead Media Markets at Missing Falls Brewery — with one Sept. 27 — and flashback movie screenings with film talent, like a Trick or Treat screening and party at Barberton’s West Theater on Halloween.

Killer Video also took over the presentation of the Akron Independent Horror Short Film Festival, slated for Oct. 10, and partnered with a Philadelphia company for a pro-wrestling-centric event, Rewind or Die, Aug. 29.

Plus, it’s in the process of doubling its footprint, introducing a larger movie rental operation that will offer over 10,000 all-genre movies on DVD, 4K and Blu-ray, as well as retail sales of physical media — including films, vinyl soundtracks and merch from NECA and Trick or Treat Studios. A 25-plus seat single-screen miniplex theater, for weekly screenings of throwback movies, is also being created.

The nostalgia that greets visitors to Killer Video can dredge up long-forgotten memories and emotions. Some guests have even cried.

“It’s a more human experience,” Fritz says. “We need something that grounds you and anchors you, and physical media does that.”

453 High St., lower level, Suite 102, Akron, 234-334-0273, thekvm.org